In Blonde by Andrew Dominik, which you can watch on Netflix, Marilyn Monroe (played by an unrecognizable Ana de Armas) is a figure crushed by cruelty. From the press, which turned her into a superficial myth and shattered her life in big uncomfortable scandals. And of every man who was part of her life and that she used as an object of desire.
But, much more painful still, the violent image of a woman who went through fearful situations of abuse. All in front of the public eye and under the unhealthy collective obsession that awakened her undoubted attractiveness as the definitive star of the star system.
Blonde, based on the book of the same name by Joyce Carol Oates, is, on the surface, fiction. But a version so close to what could have happened that it is disturbing. The argument uses speculation to try to tell what could have happened in the darkest moments of the actress’s life.. Often the data surrounding Marilyn Monroe borders on the ambiguous. Especially when they are confused with a large-scale generational myth that makes her figure an almost unreal idea.
Was she really a woman crushed under all the power—of show business and politics—that converged around her? What happened for an anonymous actress to become the center of interest in Hollywood and later, a legend of pop culture?
Like the book that adapts, Blonde tries to analyze how much of what is said about Monroe is true. But the film is so interested in making this hypothetical vision of the actress believable, that it turns it into a succession of shocking scenes.
Blonde
In Andrew Dominik’s Blonde, Marilyn Monroe (played by an unrecognizable Ana de Armas), is a figure crushed by cruelty. From the press, that she made a shallow myth of her and that she tore her life apart in big uncomfortable scandals. Of every man that she was part of her life and that she used as an object of desire. But much more painful still, from the violent image of a woman who went through fearsome layers of cruelty. All in front of the public eye and under the unhealthy collective obsession that aroused her undoubted appeal as her living myth.
Marilyn Monroe, the one that was, the one that could be, the one that could be
The plot game of reimagining the most controversial and unknown points in Marilyn Monroe’s life has its ups and downs. The script follows the actress during an alleged clandestine abortion and sexual scenes with a certain gratuitous air that may or may not have happened.
But, within the world created to the measure of the myth, everything seems to be a certainty rather than a hypothesis. Marilyn Monroe emerges as a broken, grieving and, more often than not, bewildered creature. A woman who was devoured by the Hollywood machinery until she was turned into a product. One so valuable and so carefully crafted that she ended up making the real woman disappear.
Did it happen like this? The film is not entirely interested in the dilemma, although it insists on that point. Actually, Dominik’s Marilyn Monroe is a character capable of reflecting her time. With the greys, glitters and little horrors of it.
If something surprises in this impeccable version that is close to the cinematographic biography, but goes further, it is its perception of collective evil. Marilyn Monroe is a hostage of the relentless persecution of the press. From her perception of her physical attractiveness as an element that should be marketable and that she ceased, at some point, to belong to her.
Blonde tells the tragic story of a myth
The Monroe of Blonde She is a woman on the brink of the abyss. That she goes through silent horrors and sufferings. Used, hurt, brutalized until she became the icon of a kind of frivolous beauty that Hollywood celebrated as a market achievement.. The cruelty to which Marilyn Monroe was subjected is, in fact, the most painful point of Blonde and, strangely, his greatest strength.
The argument turns the figure of the actress into a duality that allows the public to ask themselves questions. Who is the woman who conquered the mecca of cinema and became a benchmark for what the industry could achieve? The one that she, in her words, she was born to act? Or the media creature created for the wonder and consumption of the masses? In BlondeMarilyn Monroe is the most ruthless, cold and calculating paradigm of Hollywood.
A construction tailored to the needs of the public and collective desires. Blonde emphasizes, in his best sequences, the fact that Marilyn Monroe —the real one— was deconstructed and turned into what the cinema needed from her. So attractive in front of the camera as to become an immediate icon and so isolated behind the spotlight as to be, in reality, a victim.
The pains of a mysterious woman masterfully played by Ana de Armas
Ana de Armas, who camouflages herself at surprising levels under the skin of the myth, builds a suffering and fragile character, which is moving. Thanks to the actress, the premise about exploring the dark celebrity undergoes a brilliant evolution. Good part of Blonde it builds on de Armas’s ability to delve into his role carefully. away from cliches, is perhaps the most elegant version of Marilyn Monroe that the cinema could conceive.
His performance makes Blonde a narrative dilemma that has generated a lot of interest. How much of what Marilyn Monroe suffered was hidden by the brutal demands of Hollywood? How much was unavoidable? It is not a new dilemma around the history of the actress. But, on this occasion, the script has more elements to approach it from several different dimensions. The formula of the great star, built from a fragile woman, has something dramatic and sweetened. However, in Blonde takes on a new meaning, becomes more strange and enigmatic.
Norma Jeane, the real name of the actress, is used as a transit between pain and fear on more than one occasion. Perhaps that subtle difference of the woman who disappeared to hold the star is the most painful backstory. The most royal and the brightest among the dozens that converge in the golden but fearsome heart of Blonde.